26th September, 2023
At least 20 people died and another 290 were injured when a fuel depot exploded in Nagorno-Karabakh, the health ministry of the South Caucasian region said on Tuesday morning.
People were taken to hospital with varying degrees of injury after the explosion on Monday evening, the ministry said.
It is not yet clear what caused the explosion in the Armenian-majority region, which was militarily defeated by Azerbaijan last week.
By Tuesday morning, seven people who had been taken to hospital had died, the health ministry said.
In addition, 13 bodies had been recovered from the site of the accident, while dozens of injured people were still in mortal danger, it said.
Following the explosion, the authorities had initially spoken of at least 200 people injured.
Large flames could be seen in photos posted on social networks.
The region’s human rights office appealed to the world community to urgently fly out people for treatment, especially those seriously injured.
“Nagorno-Karabakh’s medical capacity is insufficient to save people’s lives,’’ said the message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.